Release 19 Instructions

Well, should swords be hanging loose or sheathed in a scabbard? I'd imagine sheathed weapons wouldn't show their enchantments. The only issue would be with weapons that don't sheath, like pole-arms, for instance.

 

As long as they are visible in combat it's not a problem. Sheathed weapons would look better out of combat than not

 

Yeah, he's been shifting more to the random deck style over time. Even in recent interviews he said he was still not in favor of it until the recent combat changes to assign skills to slots. I think if they ever move away from a locked deck, they will need to turn that firehose way down on random deck for new players. Perhaps decay = 0 and even another suggestion: the number of skills (or different skills) you can assign to slots is also skill-based, so essentially an absolutely brand new player has a simulated locked deck. Remember, new players also will have very little skills to even start with, and a smaller hotbar and very low deck minimums.

If they ever did, I'm hoping it would be part of my alternate combo system I proposed in other threads where stacks/combos are part of the deck build. The variation here for locked decks is that you can assign those stacks/combos but they'd possibly have greater cooldown.

 

Even with maxed skills it can sometimes take a VERY long time for a particular skill to come up (usually when you really need it), unlike a locked deck that always has it available, at the cost of higher cooldown.

 

Its not just higher cooldown, its not being able to use it in a combo, not able to stack it, costing more focus, *and* longer cooldown. Locked skills are only good for having those critical items that you have to be able to time correctly (healing and CC, basically), otherwise random glyphs are far superior to locked skills.

 

I dont mind the random deck as much since I've gotten used to it. It would be nice if you could reduce the size of your deck so you dont have to keep adding extra stuff to avoid blanks. It might be kind of nice to have the ability to combo a randomly dealt glyph with a locked one - but no combo for two locked glyphs. That way you could incorporate some stability and anchor skills while still randomizing things.

I'm sure it will change over time, but some combos also kinda suck (quadruple slash). It would also be interesting to see combos involving 3 or more glyphs.

 

I disagree.

Cooldown and focus can be brought on par with unlocked, using innates and raising every skill at level 5. The lack of combo and stacks (which means you have to wait to be dealt N glyphs, with N>=2) can be somehow compensated with higher number of weaker skills fired in the same time window.

I can take on three ghosts at once, with my locked deck.

I soloed Evil Bunny, without using sacred orbs, with my locked deck.

Random deck *IS* superior, but not that much superior.

 

Interesting, what level and what kind of skills? I find ghosts very irritating and wouldn't want to try more than one at a time. The very low xp for them (compared to just about everything else near them) is a bit of an insult.

 

The answer to this is mind-lock. You can repeat mind-lock to maintain the skills (even stacked or in combos), to save them for when you need them.

A locked deck doesn't "always" have it available, if its in cool-down.

Using mind-lock in a properly engineered random deck you can have any with near constant up-time.

 

@Unforgiven2 - maybe a youtube video would be able to explain that? i've got one of those random deck setups that just seem to work perfectly, but for the life of me i don't remember what i did to get it setup that way.

 

Haha, as you were posting this, I had just posted this thread in General Discussion

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...gram-to-record-the-game-to-make-videos.33554/

 

Ok, I made a newbie effort at a youtube video showing my deck build, using mind-lock in a random deck to have the benefits of both random, and locked deck styles.



And how I use it to fight ghosts in melee with ease

 

For Evil Bunny (R16) I think I was ~48-50: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/scavenger-hunt.23894/page-2#post-349239 (unfortunately I didn't post my stats at the time - I have to check at home if I did snapshot my doll). I soloed it, no grenades, and picked on its skeleton friends with careful pulling/kiting.

For ghosts, a bit lower, make it ~40-45. The three on the ground level of Shuttered Eye, or the three in the ruined pillars hallway in Spectral Mines, are my favorites.

Now I'm 54, still with my 2x exp bonus. At the moment I find very hard to take on 2+ earth/sand elementals in Northern Grunvald Barrens or in deep Etceter Crag Mines - that continuous earthquake is quite a nuisance.

My build is always the same: cloth armor with RF unbonused cloth chest/leggings for fizzle and movement rate, dual wield with lightning/attack speed shortswords, a couple of spells each from death/water/life school, plus various innates.

My ten glyphs: Thrust, Double Slash, Offhand, Death Touch, Ice Fist, Ice Arrow, Enlightenment (or Gust in the alt deck), Tap Soul, Healing Touch and Healing Ray.

 

Thanks for the details. Sounds like your skills are all over the place, I was trying to specialize in one school (mostly bludgeon, with the mandatory bit of healing as you just can't do without and a few left over points in a couple basic magic skills that have a low fizzle chance with plate) and that works very poorly against ghosts (and ranged enemies aren't much fun, either). Maybe more variety is preferrable after all...

 

This doesn't give all the information you wanted but it does provide a general idea of the direction that it's headed in.

Richard and Starr comments on the Locked Deck

EDIT: Just noticed that someone posted the same video above. This link will start at the appropriate location.

 

I dearly hope every playstyle will be viable for most situations, but still unable to overcome everything too easily.

At the moment the principle I build on is survivability. Having a wide array of tools to be able to dictate the engagement. Prefer nimbleness to raw power, and always, always keep a safety valve at hand. And quick, high-crit, weak blows that can be liberally interspersed with quick, low-cooldown, weak magic.

If you hit for 100 dam every five seconds, I prefer to hit five times, for 20 dam, in the same time frame: both my shortswords give +30% haste. That way I can also pepper my opponent with cheap spells and abilities (offhand, DT, ice fist) I can "modulate" depending on threats, health and focus. And with light armor, there's always the chance to flee away outrunning anyone. Maybe not exactly courageous, but ultimately wise.

 

Not a chance. I happily invite you to a test. We both get to level 20 after the next wipe, then stop and meet up, then just stand and hit each other with any melee ability we can trigger while wearing the same two-handed blade (and nude... I promise it's for testing purpose! ). One with a locked deck, one with a random deck. Then check who does more damage per time. If the outcome is anything else than random deck 100% of the time, I'm happily going to purchase you $5 store credit.

 

That'd be very interesting, and I'm ready to test it in a controlled environment.

My point is not I won't be beaten. My point is I won't be beaten by a large margin.

Superior, indeed. Far superior, not so much.

 

film it, post it here!

 

I got this thing for heavy plate and since magic and plate don't mix well I have focused almost exclusively on melee skills so far. Before r19 I experimented with all weapon types, multiple times, and settled on polearms for a bit, then later moved on to bludgeon. Was going to play around with a proper magic user some time but now that is not going to happen. I find it fairly counterproductive that learning skills has become so expensive now. Before r19 one could experiment with a certain weapon type or magic school and then try the next, now that is completely out of the question because of the tremendous cost involved. And you can't just sample a few points of a skill to get a good impression of it as the important differences tend to hide far down the tree. IMO skills need some serious changes: either create multiple skill templates you can switch between (preferrable), or else refund the majority of the coin spent when you respec. The latter would still be rather lame but at least not throttle experimentation completely...